Samples
Chapter I
The King & I and Mr G
Launched from the tub of a Vietnamese busboy who had tripped coming down the stairs, the shower of ice cubes arched perilously between waitresses, crashed upon the floor and scattered down the hallway, coming to rest around the heels of a hostess draped in resplendent Thai silk. With graceful composure, she turned to the startled couple in the entranceway and smiled: ?A table for two??
Meanwhile, Pi Me, a typically petite, cute Thai woman and the manager at The King & I Thai restaurant in St Louis, turned to the embarrassed busboy and offered the admonition, ?Mai ben rai? (?Never mind?)?and a friendly reminder for him to be more careful.
I couldn?t help but recall the incident?s low-key aftermath after a mishap of my own on my first night bussing tables at Giovanni?s, a famed Italian restaurant elsewhere in this Midwestern US city in the state of Missouri. Not quite finding the centre of gravity of a large tray laden with crystal wineglasses, I felt everything slowly pitching leftward, just before the shattering inevitability of becoming the unwelcome centre of attention. After leaving the kitchen crew to clean up and skulking back to the dining room, I heard an enraged Mr G, as we called the boss, shouting something in Italian which didn?t sound much like ?never mind?.
While recognising the obvious difference in value between ice and crystal, I also began to realise how vastly different were the two restaurants where I worked in late 1994, more than a year after I had graduated from Principia College across the Mississippi River in Illinois…………
Chapter 12
Thai Rhythms?
Before I knew it, I found myself deeply delving into a different world, with its own language, food, music, architecture, religion and subtleties. What?s more, the farther I ventured from towns into the countryside, the more charming did I find the people to be and Thai traditions to be intact.
In my first two years in Thailand, using Bangkok as a hub, on weekends I often on my own took overnight VIP buses, heading for widespread destinations in four regions of Thailand. After I met my future wife, we travelled on comfier overnight trains. All in all I have visited 50-some provinces, and have enjoyed seeing every one of them. Temples and natural attractions were at the top of the list, and I never grew tired of seeing them, similar, though, that most Thai towns and temples were. I enjoyed my temple visits, whether the Bodh Gaya-inspired temple in Ubon Ratchatani, to the enormous Mon-style stupa in Nahkon Pathom, to the Lao-like Wat Maha That in Nakhon Panom, where I stayed with monks overnight; they shared their food with me from their morning alms rounds. I had read in some travel guide that it was polite to bow when passing monks. Evidently, the young monk at Wat Maha That were not used to farang doing this, and to show me how impressed they were, invited me to spend the night with them.
In learning to get around Thailand, I became familiar with various forms of transportation, including buses, cars, motorcycles, trains, boats, planes and the occasional tuk-tuk……….
?Chapter 27
Mountains and monasteries
Brilliant white beacons of civilisation, the Tibetan-style temples and snow-topped mountains of Ladakh stand out prominently from a moonscape of brown and beige. While the magnificent hilltop monasteries have for centuries provided spiritual nourishment, their strategic positions defended Ladakh from invaders. In the valleys, snowmelt irrigates fields of barley, wheat and the few vegetables
hardy enough to grow in this cold and arid land.
The timeless scene is best exemplified at Lamayuru Gonpa, where pilgrims in traditional long woollen coats trudge up to this Buddhist temple in central Ladakh from the mud-brick homes of Lamayuru town. They spin handheld prayer wheels or finger rosaries in acts of devotion. Founded in the 10th century, this is the oldest-known temple site in Ladakh.
A scenic drive away through a windswept desert on what looks like a road to nowhere stands the 11th-century Alchi Gonpa. In the oasis village of Alchi, a girl washes her hair and women scrub dishes in a stream. Reaching this pilgrimage site takes not the usual upward hike but a downward stroll. Unlike many gonpa, this well-watered monastery has many gardens and trees that attract birds like the black 160 Destination: Asia billed magpies that soar throughout the Ladakh.
Impressive Kashmir-influenced wooden lintels beckon visitors inside one of the five main temples of the complex. There wait ancient but still fresh-looking murals, with deep blue backgrounds and Buddhas of various mudras, or hand positions. Displayed in another temple is an exquisite mandala made of coloured sand. This one is on semi-permanent display, though traditionally Tibetan mandalas are destroyed by the monks who make them to symbolise that things of this world are not meant to last………